Over the past few years, I have participated in interviews, both online for multiple people remotely and offline for face-to-face one-on-one interviews. It was only after I went through this week’s learning materials that I gained a better understanding of the issues surrounding interview effectiveness.

As for remotely interview for multiple people I have participated in, it is more like a structured interview. Because the interviewer asked us questions about our work experience and some questions related to the civil engineering profession. There is no doubt that these questions are very easy to be predicted when preparing for the interview. However, I think this type of interview is not effective enough. Because first of all, the online remote interview format will make it difficult for the interviewer to judge the candidate’s ability and character traits through some details. For example, eye contact and slight body movements. And those predictable questions will make the interviewer in a round of interviews cannot judge their ability through their answers, because after the preparation of the answer is usually very perfect, and not after the field of thought will make the interview questions lose their own meaning. At the same time, it is difficult for the interviewer to notice the performance of each candidate during the interview process. Therefore, my advice to employers is to reduce or even avoid remote interviews, as well as avoid using a fixed set of questions and add more scenario-based questions to the interview process.

As for face-to-face interview I have participated in, it is more like a unstructured interview. There was no set pattern to the interviewer’s questions. The interviewer’s questions tended to ask more about my understanding of the position I was interviewing for and to follow up with questions based on my answers. In my opinion, this method of interviewing is more effective. The interviewer was able to focus all of his attention on me and determine more efficiently whether I was a good fit for the position I was applying for. Also, the interviewer can make a more detailed judgment face to face by the way I behave. This gives me a more comprehensive understanding of my abilities. For this form of interview, I would suggest that the interviewer to extend the interview time, so that you can better ask questions to the applicant to avoid unstructured interviews difficult to quantify the results of the interview. In addition, the interviewer can conduct multiple rounds of interviews, each round for a different interview topic, so that you can better examine all aspects of the candidate’s ability to reduce the error of the interview.

Reference

Oregon State University. MGMT 453 – Week 5 lecture 2 and lecture 3